Surveillance is widely utilized in modern society. Governments, corporations, groups, and even individuals use surveillance to promote public safety and to deter and prevent crime as well as for general monitoring.
Traditional surveillance systems generally provide audio and video monitoring through an interconnected hierarchical system. For example, a closed-circuit television (CCTV) system may provide video monitoring through a set of closed-circuit cameras connected to a single stand alone aggregation device where the video feeds from the cameras are sent. The captured information may then be viewed through the aggregation device such as on one or more video screens.
To function properly, a CCTV or other similar traditional system requires a central controller or device which accepts signals from cameras and which may also provide control instructions to the devices. This allows every camera to be monitored and controlled from a single location. However, this introduces a single point of failure in that the failure of the central controller would render the entire surveillance system inoperative. Thus, such systems are said to be fragile as a failure of the central controller or the connections between the controller and the cameras either impairs or completely prevents the surveillance system from functioning. This fragility is highly undesirable in a surveillance system especially where public safety is concerned.
With the introduction of digital and networked devices, surveillance cameras could be connected via standard wired or wireless network connections. This was an improvement in that one or more standard network connections could be used by capture devices rather than a specialized, dedicated, or proprietary video connection. In addition, digital video may be sent across vast distances through digital networks, such as the Internet, which was not possible without great expense using traditional CCTV systems.
However, network based surveillance systems continue to rely on a centralized controller to function. The video or other surveillance information is still aggregated at the centralized controller which facilitates observation and analysis of the information gathered. Thus, the single point of failure has remained through the transition from traditional CCTV and similar systems to network based surveillance systems.
It is true that these traditional systems may be configured to have backup central controllers. While these backup systems provide increased reliability they do so at increased cost and often do not provide a seamless transition from the failed equipment to its associated backup device. In surveillance, any downtime including downtime associated with switching to a backup device is highly undesirable.
Traditional systems are also difficult to update for new circumstances or environments. For example, moving one or more cameras to a new location or including additional cameras or other collection devices requires installation of at least one connection from each camera or collection device to the central controller. These connections are often physical connections, such as network or coaxial cabling, which are difficult to install especially in existing structures.
Thus, what is desired and disclosed herein is a peer to peer surveillance architecture having no single point of failure that is easy to deploy and update as desired.